B's ride hot start past first-place Lightning

BOSTON — They’re still not all there, in terms of their play and their lineup, but the Bruins had enough to do the job on Wednesday night.

Welcoming forwards Brad Marchand and David Backes back to the lineup after significant injury issues, the B’s also welcomed goalie Tuukka Rask back to the win column with a 3-2 victory over the league-leading Lightning at TD Garden.

Rask, who made 19 saves, was a somewhat controversial choice to start in goal, after Sunday’s failure (4-2 loss to the Oilers) to extend the the four-game winning streak built largely on backup Anton Khudobin’s work in goal, stretching his personal losing streak to four games in the process. Rask hadn’t won since a 5-3 decision over the Wild on Nov. 6.

Backes, meanwhile, played for just the sixth time this season, but well ahead of the eight-week recovery period anticipated after Nov. 2 surgery to remove a portion of his colon. Marchand (two assists) had missed eight of the last 10 games, the last six in a row with an undisclosed injury.

The Bruins couldn’t have produced a better, more dominant start. Employing an 11-forward, seven-defenseman lineup for the second time in three games, the B’s took advantage of a team playing for the second night in a row to build a 19-5 advantage in shots on goal and a 2-0 lead.

Backes, playing most often at right wing on a line with rookie Danton Heinen and center Riley Nash, got into the mix with several good scoring opportunities, but it was Marchand who got on the scoresheet. He had secondary assists on both first-period goals, sending linemate David Pastrnak away on a transition rush that led to Charlie McAvoy’s third goal of the season at 7:27, then feeding Danton Heinen to start a 2-on-1 about 10 minutes later. Heinen hit Nash, whose shot from the right circle went over Andrei Vasilevskiy’s glove for a 2-0 lead at 17:13.

Officials ruled that Marchand had interfered with Vasilevskiy while establishing a screen, but Cassidy challenged that ruling and won McAvoy’s goal back.

The Bruins’ start to the second period wasn’t as strong, but they did use some chippy play to their advantage. Frank Vatrano’s defense of Torey Krug after Lightning forward Cedric Paquette boarded the B’s defenseman resulted in a 4-on-4 manpower situation that the Bruins were able to exploit. Spooner was able to emerge with the puck after a battle in the left circle, and skimmed it to the far circle for Krug, who cranked a one-timer home for his fourth of the year to make it 3-0 a little less than six minutes into the second.

The Lightning answered with 9:07 left in the period. Andrei Sustr scored his first goal of the year on a shot from the point that sliced through defenders Nash and Postma and hit Rask’s hip before finding the back of the net.

The Bruins’ lead shrank to a goal early in the third period. With defenseman Brandon Carlo in the penalty box for interference, Steven Stamkos finished a tic-tac-toe play that started with Mikhail Sergachev’s pass from the point to Nikita Kucherov in the right circle, followed by Kucherov’s circle-to-circle feed to Stamkos for a one-timer at 2:20.